


beneath my lungs

by ernestdummkompf (JehanFerres)



Series: once upon a different life [1]
Category: Gilbert & Sullivan & Related Fandoms, Original Work
Genre: And like, Canon Gay Relationship, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Operas, Theatre, Trans Male Character, but still, i don't know what "something" is but..., i don't write a huge amount of it, i mostly wanted to focus on character development, it's also g&s because it's loosely set at the festival, my lord am i ever using it as a metaphor, something as a metaphor, this really is original fiction!, write what you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 02:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9269444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JehanFerres/pseuds/ernestdummkompf
Summary: welcome to a Bad But YetEntirelyMostly Original Work by me, oliver. this is following a vaguely autobiographical original character(tm) named devon, as he tries to navigate gay stuff and playing colonel fairfax, which has NOTHING to do with my secret wish to play colonel fairfax nosiree.anyway this started out as just... something i was writing as filler time during nano when i reached the end of what i could turn my original plot into buuuuut devon is my most treasured original character (although liam is a close second). forgive my slightly sloppy editing and characterisation and just.. stuff; i've basically forgotten how to produce anything original.thinking of turning this into a series as a form of backup because lmao do i ever need to back stuff up.





	

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to a Bad But Yet ~~Entirely~~ Mostly Original Work by me, oliver. this is following a vaguely autobiographical original character(tm) named devon, as he tries to navigate gay stuff and playing colonel fairfax, which has NOTHING to do with my secret wish to play colonel fairfax nosiree.
> 
> anyway this started out as just... something i was writing as filler time during nano when i reached the end of what i could turn my original plot into buuuuut devon is my most treasured original character (although liam is a close second). forgive my slightly sloppy editing and characterisation and just.. stuff; i've basically forgotten how to produce anything original.
> 
> thinking of turning this into a series as a form of backup because lmao do i ever need to back stuff up.

Cycling to the Utopia Pavilion to hide his bike behind the Festival Van shouldn’t have taken Devon longer than about ten minutes. He had been cycling about thirty miles round a day to get to and from college since the New Year and it was August now, so the task should not have been that hard. But apparently he was out of practice now, because he arrived about twenty minutes after he left, out of breath and more than a little annoyed. He wouldn’t have time to get breakfast before this preliminary meeting before rehearsals started and would probably be a little late after hiding his bike.

Still, it would be a bad idea to skimp on that, since he wanted to still have the bike at the end of the day. He chained it to a tree and covered the seat so that it wouldn’t get wet, attached his helmet to the handlebars and then took a moment to straighten his binder.

He hadn’t really wanted to cycle down wearing the thing because now it was absolutely going to be sticky and unpleasant all day, but needs must, he supposed. At least he had had some advice on how to breathe properly wearing it from the Gender Clinic the other month so that things weren’t too painful.

His phone was buzzing when he pulled it from his pocket. Amy, who he was unable to point out that he had known for many years (since they were both nine, in fact), had insisted on getting his number so that she could add him to a group text with the rest of the older members of the cast. That had been at the audition, and he literally hadn’t been spared a single message from them since. As much as he found it a little annoying, as would anybody, he very much enjoyed the sense of camaraderie that organising things for themselves brought.

In the past during Youth Productions, things had been organised for them by the other ones or by the adults, but now they were the older ones. And, in some cases, the adults. Devon thought he was probably the oldest at eighteen, or at least that was what they had been able to figure out from considerable Facebook Stalking of those who had escaped before Amy had been able to add them to the Group Text.

_Amy: whos here?_

_Amy: its just me and liam right now im so bored!!_

_Liam: Oy_

_Liam: I did offer to chat, you know!_

Devon laughed.

_Devon: I’m here I’m here! Just locking the bike up._

He didn’t wait for a reply, and instead headed straight into the room. It looked very much like they hadn’t quite finished setting up for the festival club – which wouldn’t surprise him. It seemed to get more and more disorganised every year, not that he was complaining. At least the building work would give him an excuse to look anywhere but at Liam.

Amy and Liam were sat over in a corner at one of the uncovered, metal tables. Amy was engaged in something that Devon assumed was very important, while Liam was sat looking away from her and reading a book. Devon assumed that it wasn’t a score, but, that said, it wasn’t too unlikely. Fortunately, there were also two familiar figures over at the table with them.

The first of these was Ben Lyman, who had worked with the company that Devon was in when he did Stage Management on the side. He could be a bit of a nightmare to try to get to shut up because he was pretty much always incredibly hyperactive, but he was a lot of fun at cast afterparties. Plus, because he knew how much his constant yammering on annoyed Devon, he would always turn up about half an hour early and help Devon with whatever he was doing.

The second person that Devon knew slightly better than Liam and Amy (or at least better than he was _pretending_ to know Liam and Amy) was Toby Grayson. They had been at school together, for a given value of “at school”, since Devon had actually been in year seven the year Toby had been in year ten, but they had since got pretty friendly. Devon had had a _very_ brief stint as Toby’s stage manager, but this year he had moved on to greater things – namely chorus for the Professional Company. Devon would have been lying if he said that he wasn’t a _little_ jealous, but it still amused him that he had spent so long bossing Toby about.

Fortunately for him, Toby and Ben were both incredibly sociable, and they waved him over. Liam vaguely acknowledge him, and Amy was too wound up in her attempt to flip over a water bottle and capture the event on film to bother with talking. Toby and Ben more than made up for this, until Liam wordlessly got a pair of headphones out of his bag, and Amy finally turned towards them.

“Okay, are you going to-” She stopped dead, suddenly looking baffled. “You’re Devon, right?”

For a second, Devon’s mind went straight to “oh shit she’s recognised me”, but Amy had fortunately steamed right past that. “How in the hell do you know Ben and Toby?” she asked.

“He used to boss us both around,” Toby said, grinning at her. “He was my stage manager when I was assistant stage manager.”

Liam had finally started to give up the moody teenager act (he had dyed his hair, which had previously been bright red, black, Devon noted with half a smile), and taken his headphones out. “Somehow, I don’t believe that either ‘a ye can be quiet fer long enough to manage a stage.” He flicked his hair out of his eyes and stuffed his book back in his bag, carefully obscuring the title from view with his sleeve.

“It’s amazing what you can browbeat people into,” Devon joked. Toby put his arm over Devon’s shoulders, and nodded sagely.

Ben giggled. “Me too.”

“…You, I can believe,” Liam said.

Toby leaned his cheek against the top of Devon’s head with a laugh. “Don’t be so glum!” he said. “You can start being glum when you start _also_ being Shadbolt. As far as I know, Devon isn’t planning to start being a dick until he takes up the reins of Fairfax; you could follow suit.” He grinned.

“We don’t have humour in Gillygooly,” Liam said, somehow with a completely straight face. Toby, naturally for somebody hearing quite possibly the silliest place name on the planet for the first time, collapsed into peals of laughter.

Even Amy, who had heard it before hundreds of times, giggled. “ _Anyway_ ,” she said, watching Devon gently push Toby off himself and onto Ben, “we should probably start this… whatever we were meeting up for.”

Liam had started to get his book out of his bag again, and Devon could now see that it was a copy of the full book of American Idiot. Devon filed a mental note to tell him about the really bratty Saint Jimmy he had dealt with a few months ago as a couple more people came through the door, just as Ben dragged Toby away.

“Thank God they’re gone.” Liam dragged a chair out for Devon as a gangling boy about Devon’s age hovered nervously near them. It then struck Devon that he should absolutely wear a Green Day hoodie at some point during the week.

“You’re Jay, right?” Amy said. The gangly youth nodded, looking relieved to have been acknowledged. “Come sit down! Hey, Devon, I found your doppelgänger!” She barely finished the sentence before collapsing into giggles. Liam looked around, expecting not to be particularly amused, but even he ended up hiding a laugh behind his hand.

Devon hadn’t realised quite how tall Jay was until he fully unfolded himself, because he must have been about six foot five. He really had the distinct look of somebody put together from various unmatched pipe-cleaners that somebody found down the back of the sofa when they were drunk. Also, he had pale skin, blue eyes, and white-blond hair.

Meanwhile Devon, standing at about five foot but lightly muscular, could literally never pass for this kid. Not just because of their disparate heights and builds, but because Devon very distinctly wasn’t white. Dark skin, natural black hair and very dark eyes. Clearly, whoever had cast these two had had the time of their life. Or they were drunk.

“In my defence, I _do_ look like Phoebe. You, on the other hand…” Jay made a face. Devon laughed and Liam made a noise behind him.

“Oh God, do you?” Liam said, putting his head on the table. “I’d been tryin’ta forget that Claire exists.” Amy looked at him with a slightly raised eyebrow. “What? I showed ya what she’d been sendin’ me.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Amy cringed. “Good luck with… that, by the way. She looked at Devon. “I think you’re going to end up protecting him from Phoebe, not the other way around. You can ask him why.”

“No. No, you cannot.” Now that he’d calmed down somewhat, Liam seemed to have got his accent back under control, as well as his expression of anguish, which he had now replaced with a look of well-cultivated irritation. Devon had to laugh.

They’d always got on well, fortunately for Devon. Even when they were very young and would pretend to hate each other, Liam always liked to show off his superior knowledge of Gilbert and Sullivan. Devon would, of course, always promptly prove that he knew just about more, and send Liam into a sulk.

That said, Liam was like a sponge for information. It wouldn’t have surprised Devon if he now knew ten times more than him, even though Devon basically spent all the time he wasn’t at college reading up on Gilbert and Sullivan. Liam just had a natural way with information.

This was weird, and Devon wasn’t sure he liked it.

**Author's Note:**

> take it from me, there's _**way**_ more american idiot references where the first few came from.
> 
> also i apologise for liam's abysmal phonetic accent; i wrote this at like... one in the morning and it sufficed then lmao.


End file.
